Harley Quinn: The Animated Series

I think it's more in the sense that having explicit sex acts would violate some sort of morality clause for toys or other kid-targeted merchandise. I know something similar happened in the 80s when Bill Mnatlo wanted Spider-Man to father a child with Black Cat out of wedlock.

EDIT: Batman's voice actor reacts

Edited by Aleistar on Jun 14th 2021 at 10:37:29 AM

I just linked two animated works featuring far more inappropriate sex between Batman characters. It's not about the G-rating.

Especially since Bruce's illegitimate son with Talia is also a famous and prominent character... Although how consensual that was varies, like with Nightwing they just pretend it was always all above board because he's a manly man who must love all sex.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Jun 14th 2021 at 10:48:11 AM

That's fair; I forgot they even Killing Joke and Batman and Harley Quinn even existed.

Nightwing was actually raped.

And so was Batman when Talia conceived Damian. She drugged him during that excursion.

Can they even keep that one story straight anymore? Initially, it was a regular roll in the hay, then came a rape retcon.

They were, but good luck getting official acknowledgement of that. Didn't the Nightwing and Tarantula case give us the immortal quote "it wasn't rape, just nonconsensual sex"?

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Jun 14th 2021 at 10:56:25 AM

Not helped by how DC is trigger-happy with the reboot button, so it's hard to even tell which old stories happened and which ones didn't.

Honestly the only justification for all of this is to avoid potential negative PR for involving Batfamily in some kind of sexual situation. As, quite honestly, any sex scenes seems to generate some kind of backlash including:

- The rooftop sex scene between Batman & Catwoman in the New 52 comics

- The rooftop sex scene between Batman & Batgirl in the Killing Joke

- Harley Quinn having sex with Nightwing in Batman & Harley Quinn

- The entire Batdong controversy

- And lets not forget how many fans did not like the idea of Bruce and Lois banging and having a child in the unused JL 2 and 3 scripts that were leaked.

Point is, while ridiculous of a cut to make considering the nature of Batman/Bruce character when it comes to their sex life I can see why this was made as a means of avoiding a controversy

Considering one episode had Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman get sprayed with Poison Ivy's love pheromone and left alone on a rooftop to their own devices and our imaginations, I don't think that justification would hold.

At the very least, having it be left entirely to innuendos and clever indirect wordplay should still have been allowable.

Always knew Batman was a lousy lover.

Bet he just rolls over and goes to sleep as soon as he's done.

Edited by djoki996 on Jun 15th 2021 at 1:44:26 AM

He’s an emotionally closed off and wreck of man who even his actual genuine friends admit he’s not easy to get along with.

None of this is surprising. The fact he even has sex to begin with is surprising since he comes across as disinterested in regards to any form of physical intimacy.

Edited by slimcoder on Jun 15th 2021 at 1:20:34 AM

Considering the weird tango he has with his archenemy Joker it’s not that bizarre honestly.

I swear to God there is no worse interpretation than the one that implies that Batman and Joker’s rivalry goes beyond…… platonic stuff and for Bruce to actually reciprocate on some level.

Honestly, his dogged determination to let the Joker live despite all the shit he's pulled and the manifest unfitness of Gotham's criminal justice system and healthcare system does start to raise some eyebrows after a while. It's a choice between the deaths of thousands of innocents and the death of one Monster Clown, and he always, always picks the guy who keeps getting weirdly flirty with him.

Let someone else kill him then.

Everyone's always giving him an ultimatum to kill Joker, and they never bother to do it themselves. Its like they care more about complaining to Batman and proving a point to him than actually killing the clown.

He doesn't "always pick" Joker - Batman tries to avoid killing period.

If you want to shit on somebody for not killing Joker, you might as well ask why Gotham's judicial system keeps putting him back into Arkham instead of executing him.

I'm sorry but does DC think Damian Wayne was delivered from the stork or something?

Also, Tony Stark had sex with someone in his first film. We still got toys.

This sounds nothing more than toxic masculinity to me.

When Marvel says it’s the world outside your window, it also includes the stuff covered by window shades.

Note that this was a retcon. The original story in which Damian was conceived depicted the act as a consensual affair. Morrison rewrote it as rape because they misremembered the story.

Note that the Iron Man movie came out before Disney bought Marvel.

Edited by windleopard on Jun 15th 2021 at 5:49:43 AM

edited post.

Edited by windleopard on Jun 15th 2021 at 5:49:30 AM

Is that the story of the famous image of a shirtless Batman and Ra's getting into a sword fight shown in Batman and Son?

Nope, different story.

Huh alright then.

They should do a Ra's greatest hits book of his iconic stories....... and if they did they should reprint it so its not too ridiculously expensive.

If it’s a choice between saving lives and saving Joker, Batman will always choose saving lives - there are many instances where Batman just leaves Joker to die if he has to, it’s just that Joker always survives.

I don’t know where the “he’ll save Joker first, at the expense of innocent lives” idea is coming from, but it’s groundless.

Now that I remember there was a really stupid moment related to that in an event from last year.

At the end of Joker War Bats and Joker have their final confrontation in a secluded abandoned factory, and then Harley comes in shooting Joker’s eye out. She has him dead to rights but instead of killing him like she’s been wanting too the entire event, she instead forces Batman into another ultimatum. She ties a bomb vest to Joker and herself to a pillar as the building burns down, telling Batman either save Joker and let her die or save her and let Joker die. Obviously Batman saves Harley as Joker runs off into the inferno with the vest ticking but we learn immediately afterwards later on that Joker knew how to quickly disable the vest allowing him to make his escape, making everything Harley did completely pointless.

Even worse is the previous issue had her telling Batman “Look either you kill him or I will, he needs to die tonight. If you don’t do it, I’m taking the shot no matter what you say.” Yet she didn’t take the shot for some reason, going against her word entirely, and despite Joker still being alive she ends the story completely smug and self-satisfied for some reason.

Can we really fault Batman for not killing the Joker if no one else seems willing to do so, being more interested in forcing Batman to abandon his principles?

Edited by slimcoder on Jun 15th 2021 at 6:27:12 AM